


Where We've Been

by IsThereARealLife



Series: Between the Shadow and the Soul [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff (if you squint), M/M, Post-Rogue One, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-18 11:28:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10615971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IsThereARealLife/pseuds/IsThereARealLife
Summary: They escape Scarif, but not without casualties or injuries. Then Bodhi begs them to keep his old imperial uniform and people grow wary of his motives. Only one person seems to trust him unfailingly.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [akadefenders](https://archiveofourown.org/users/akadefenders/gifts).



> Written for [ishita](http://www.akadefenders.tumblr.com) based on some of her post-rogue one headcanons and as congrats for finishing her first med midsems (what an icon tbh) so here you are friendo, hope you enjoy it :)
> 
> and i hope the rest of yall enjoy too
> 
> this will be part of a series (yay)

  
An eternity passes in an instant when Bodhi sees the grenade fly into their ship. A heartbeat. He reacts, diving for it, snatching it up, throwing it back the way it came. Quick, but not quite enough. It detonates in mid-air, throwing him backwards into the depths of the ship. He can feel his skin blistering, his uniform burning up.

He staggers to his feet, adrenaline failing to drown out the pain, but at least giving him the push to keep going. He blinks past the dust and ash from the grenade and spots Baze hunched on the ground…over Chirrut.

“Baze!” he yells, waving his arms wildly. “Baze, come on!” But the other man doesn’t hear him.

Bodhi scans around quickly. There are no weapons left onboard, there is too much firing going on to run back out there. Then he spots a pile of debris by the exit of the ship. He picks up a few pieces and throws them at Baze, hoping to get his attention. The effort makes him grunt in pain, but it pays off as a rock glances off Baze’s armour. He startles and looks around, finally noticing Bodhi.

Bodhi gestures some more and hopes Baze understands before clambering up the ladder to the flight controls. His hands sting and his shoulder throbs when it bumps against the rungs, but he manages eventually. His vision is starting to blur but he forces his eyes to stay open. He has to do this. He can still make a difference. He can save his friends.

He raises the ship barely off the ground. Just enough to skim the sand and debris. He drifts closer to Baze, and yes, the man knows what’s going on now. He’s gathered Chirrut into his arms, still crouched but ready to jump. He disappears from Bodhi’s eyeline, but Bodhi hears the distinct clang-thud of a heavy object landing on the metal ramp below. “Go, we’re on!” Baze yells, and he takes off.

Bodhi glances back a few times, but Baze still doesn’t join him. “Chirrut… Is he…?”

“He’s…breathing. But I don’t…” Baze trails off.

As he searches for Cassian and Jyn, Bodhi feels the adrenaline rush fading. The pain intensifies exponentially as the minutes tick by. They swoop low to pick up two surviving rebels, and one of them points him up to the top of the main citadel, where three figures stand. As they soar upwards, one of the figures falls, off the edge of the tower and in front of the ship. A figure all in billowing white clothes. Not Cassian or Jyn, then. Thank the Force…

He brings the ship to a stop at the edge of the platform, so his friends can climb on board. Jyn appears mostly intact, but Cassian is limping badly.

But he got them. He saved them. His vision starts to blur more, and this time he can’t stave it off. He pulls the ship towards the gateway, hoping he can see it properly. He just has to get them out of here. Off this planet.

The rebel beside him yells something, and that’s when he realises his hearing is fuzzy as well. More loud noises. More voices, urgent. “Cassian, can you fly this thing?”

“Of course, but…” A softer voice.

“I’m the pilot… I’m the pilot…” He’s the pilot. It’s his job. He’s the pilot. He has to get them to safety.

He feels hands prying him away from the controls. He tries to resist but he has no strength left. Something solid under his back. Someone pulling at his skin. Someone screams… It takes several moments to realise it’s him.

Another voice is shouting. And his name. That soft voice no longer so soft, more desperate. Still his name.

“Cassian, we’ve got him. Just get us out of here! … We’ll look after him, now fly!”

A figure looms over him as everything else starts to slip away.

He can see the vastness of space through the window. He got them out. It’s okay now. His eyes drift shut. He’s done enough…

  


* * *

  


It’s a long way back to Yavin-4. Bodhi wakes feverishly a few times, but Cassian has to focus on flying. It is much more difficult without a co-pilot... He can’t afford to take his eyes off the monitors and equipment in case they are followed. Jyn reports to him, though. The two rebels have had their minor injures treated. Chirrut and Bodhi are both critical but stable for now. Baze hasn’t left Chirrut’s side; he just sits by him, holding his hand, muttering, “I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.”

Bodhi, however, was too hurt to be moved, and is instead lying on a bunk somewhere behind Cassian. He hears every shift, every whimper, every cry of pain. His own leg is excruciating, yet somehow, hearing Bodhi in agony is worse.

His clothes had to be cut off so his burns could be treated, and are now piled up in the corner. Not in the garbage, though. During a semi-lucid moment, Bodhi begged Jyn to keep his clothes. She looked to Cassian, suspicious and unsure of a defector keeping anything with a connection to the Empire. But he nodded. It was a little strange, given how damaged the clothes are, but Cassian trusts Bodhi.

Cassian glances back every now and then to check on him. Never for long, just enough to see his creased face, to pick out the tell-tale movement of his chest: reassurance.

  


* * *

  


Bodhi drifts back to consciousness in a soft bed. Sterile white ceiling above, harsh false lighting burns his eyes. He flinches and grunts and tries to shift but can’t muster the energy. His skin doesn’t feel like it’s on fire anymore, but his whole body is dully throbbing.

“Bodhi?” asks a voice beside him.

He turns his head just enough to see Baze sitting in a chair by the next bed, and Chirrut lying in it, unconscious or asleep, Bodhi can’t tell.

“Yeah…” His voice cracks.

“How do you feel?” There’s a scraping noise as Baze drags his chair closer.

“Sore…and heavy. How long has it been since…?”

Baze looks back at Chirrut then closes his eyes. “About eight standard days. You’ve been out of the bacta tank for one. Captain Andor was released this morning. Jyn and the other two rebels are fine.”

Bodhi nods slowly. “And the plans?”

Baze pauses and purses his lips. “We got them… The planet-killer is on its way here now. All squadrons have been sent out to destroy it.”

“Cassian—” Suddenly, from fear or something else, Bodhi struggles into a sitting position, ready to run out and stop him.

“Wasn’t cleared for duty, only to leave his bed,” Baze reassures him. “He’s in the war room with Mon Mothma and the princess now.”

“Princess?”

Baze’s mouth twitches at the side. “A lot happened since Scarif…” Bodhi has never heard Baze to be a man of many words, but the ex-guardian spends the next ten minutes explaining everything that happened, all the while keeping an eye on the clock across the room. Nearing the end of his story, Baze notices Bodhi glancing between him and the clock. “When they came to get the Captain, they said we’d know in an hour at most. It’s been an hour and one minute now.”

“You mean…”

Right then, a loud clattering and commotion rises in the hall, and then Cassian bursts into the room, limping with the help of a cane. He’s frowning and Bodhi feels his heart plummet into his gut.

But then he’s grinning broadly and exclaiming, “We did it.” _Sneaky bastard_. 

Bodhi can see the exact moment when Cassian focuses on him. “Bodhi! You’re awake!”

Bodhi blinks. And again. “I…yeah. Wait. We…we did it?”

Cassian nods. “The Skywalker kid got a direct hit. It’s gone.”

“We did it.” Bodhi’s mouth curves up into a grin as Cassian hobbles across the room to embrace him. "We did it."

The pressure hurts a little, but he doesn’t mind. The hug is comforting, and more soothing than anything else he can think of at this point. He drops his head onto Cassian’s shoulder and winds his arms around his waist. 

Then Cassian lowers his voice so only the two of them can hear. “Thank you, Bodhi Rook. You saved us all.”

  


* * *

  


Bodhi stays in the medbay another few days to regain some strength, and then is assigned quarters in the same hall as the rest of the Rogue One crew. Cassian takes it upon himself to get everything organised. When Bodhi is released, Cassian is there. He takes him to the storeroom to get bedding and clothes and other basics. He takes him by the mess hall and the hangar and the war room, to make sure he knows his way around the whole base. Then he leads him into the sleeping quarters and stops by a door that looks exactly like the rest in the hall and Cassian tells him to put his hand on the keypad so it can calibrate.

“This is your room. Has its own refresher. I’m in that one—” He points at a door across the hall and one down. Bodhi nods. “And the one straight across,” he points again, “is Baze and Chirrut’s… Not that either of them have used it yet…” He trails off. Chirrut still hasn’t woken up, and Baze still hasn’t left his side for more than a few minutes at a time.

The door beeps and slides open just as the silence becomes awkward. The lights blink on and Bodhi hobbles to the bed and sits down with a sigh. His hands are twitching and his legs are throbbing and his skin is pinching. His burns are mostly scar tissue now, but the stress fractures in his legs will take longer to heal, and he will need to do physical therapy to get everything working properly again.

“Are you okay, Bodhi? Was that too much?” Cassian asks worriedly as he drops the pile of Bodhi’s new things onto the small table.

He shrugs. “Maybe a little…But I’ll be okay.” He manages a weak smile that does nothing to wipe the frown off Cassian’s face.

Cassian fusses a little more, putting things away in the cupboard and the refresher, ordering Bodhi to sit back down every time he moves to help. “Stay there, I’ll be right back.” And like that, he’s gone.

Not for long, barely a minute passes before he’s striding back in with a bag of something in hand. But that’s how Cassian is, Bodhi is noticing. He always has this tense energy, not visible, no twitchy hands or nervous shifting. But every motion is calculated, every movement precise and efficient. 

“Is there something on my face?” Cassian asks, and Bodhi starts, realising he was staring.

“What? No.” He can’t help but snort. _As if Cassian would ever have food on his face…_

“Uh… Okay. Good. I brought you these…” He hands the bag to Bodhi and Bodhi sees it’s his old uniform. They really kept it, even though he was delirious and barely conscious when he asked. The idea he had at the time, the reason he wanted to keep the uniform, was just a fever dream. Completely ridiculous and unreasonable. But just maybe…

“Thank you. I appreciate this.”

“They’re mostly unsalvageable: burned and torn and bloody…”

Bodhi shakes his head. “That’s okay. I still want them.” He doesn’t want to tell anyone yet, since it most likely will never happen.

Cassian hesitates. “Alright...” And says nothing more on the subject. “You should rest. I’ll see you at dinner.”

Cassian closes the door on his way out, and Bodhi is asleep before more than the idle thought to change his clothes can pass through his mind.

  


* * *

  


Bodhi settles in. Slowly but surely, he carves out a little place for himself at the base. He gets some curious looks, some frowns, some who openly vocalise their distrust. But he has his friends and his physical therapy and a few odd jobs to do, and it isn’t that difficult to ignore the stares. Chirrut finally wakes up and the Rogue One crew is back together, save for K2. It’s obvious on Cassian’s face that he misses his friend. Bodhi wishes there was something he could do to help.

He borrows a few credits from Cassian and entices a few less-than-sober pilots into some Sabacc. Somehow, he manages to win back four times his original sum. He pays back Cassian and spends his new wealth on cloth, thread and sewing needles.

It’s a struggle at first, fighting the stinging and pulling of the scars on his hands, but the more he sews, the more it seems to help loosen them.

At first, he tries to sew in the mess with his friends, but the stares become much harder to ignore when they’re everywhere he goes. No one dares to accuse a war hero of having sympathies towards the dark side, but they can’t ignore that he used to work for the Empire. Their suspicion is palpable.

His friends are more understanding, but still confused about why he’s putting so much effort into something that seems to have no real value except to make people hate him. Cassian is the only one who genuinely doesn’t seem to mind. He doesn’t like seeing the logo, but he doesn’t show any issue with what Bodhi is actually doing. 

Weeks pass and the stares persist and the war rages on outside, but when Cassian smiles softly at Bodhi, he feels as content as he’s been in more years than he can remember.

  


* * *

  


Bodhi should have known, really. It was too good to be true, everything was going too well. This kind of good doesn’t last. Of course even Cassian couldn’t hide his uneasiness forever.

“Bodhi, really. Why are you repairing that old uniform?”

Bodhi flinches and his heart rate leaps. “Why? I-I’ve been doing this for months, why do you suddenly care now? I know people have been talking but I thought—I thought you didn’t care. I thought…”

“It’s just…”

“You have weird coping mechanisms, right? Everyone has something they do to…to not be here for one damn minute. Maybe-maybe I just. Want to…” he trails off and turns away. He thought of all the people here, Cassian wouldn’t judge him. That Cassian would at least trust him.

“I only want to know why. If it’s a coping mechanism, that’s all you—”

“It’s not… That’s not entirely why…”

“…Bodhi…” His voice is wary now. 

Bodhi’s palms are starting to sweat, his heart is pounding. His idea is probably ridiculous and completely impractical. But telling Cassian is better than hearing that caution directed at him from the one person he cares so much for.

“I…I don’t want to…I don’t want it to be forgotten. Where I came from. What I did…” He sinks onto the bed and removes his goggles so he can keep his hands occupied. “On the way back from Scarif, I was so…scared. I figured I was probably dead, and I was terrified. That I wouldn’t be remembered. That everything I did to try to help would have been for nothing.” Cassian’s hand comes to rest across Bodhi’s back but he says nothing, waiting.

“I…I want to set up a museum. A-about the rebel alliance, about the resistance. All the…all the battles and all the lives we lost, the bravery so many people showed, th-the self-sacrifice to get us to where we are. And I know it’s not over yet b-but I thought maybe it…it might… You said, ‘All rebellions are built on hope,’ and I was thinking, this might give hope to-to younger generations and they can see that a-anyone can be part of the resistance, even…even someone like me…” Bodhi sniffs and blinks back the tears in his eyes, and still Cassian says nothing. “Anyway, so that’s-that’s why I repaired my uniform. ‘Cause I want it to be there…”

Cassian’s hand tightens around Bodhi’s shoulder. “I think that sounds really good, Bodhi.”

“Wait, really?” he pulls away to look properly at Cassian’s face.

“Of course,” he insists. “I’ll help however I can. I can talk to Mon Mothma about a place for it and I could… But only if you want, of course…” Bodhi is already nodding away Cassian’s insecurity. 

“And Bodhi…?”

Bodhi’s eyebrows furrow. “Yes?”

Cassian’s hand drifts up to cup his face gently. “I would never let you be forgotten.”

And with that, Bodhi crumples, the tears in his eyes no longer able to be restrained. He collapses into Cassian, shaking, and the other man wraps him up in his arms, rocking him gently, ready to be there as long as he is needed.

  


* * *

  


“Hey, Finn, have you got a few minutes, there’s something I want to show you.”

Finn looks up at the pilot staring at him over the mess hall table. Poe is panting and has a slightly wild look in his eye. “What’s wrong? Yeah, I’m free. What is it?” He’s only been out of medbay for a few days and is enjoying not eating in bed and having food spill all down his front.

The panic fades a little from Poe’s eyes and his mouth twitches in a slight smile. “Oh. Great. Nothing’s wrong, I, uh, I just wanted to show you something…”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” he smiles and shrugs on Poe’s – now Finn’s – jacket. He stands slowly, whole body still tender from his injuries, and follows the still jittery Poe down a few halls and out a side door onto—an old landing pad?

“Where are we?”

“It’s part of the landing pad, but we don’t use this end of it. Except for this.” He points at the ship parked on the other side of the pavement. “I’ve wanted to show it to you for a while but you were in medbay, and then the last few days have been too busy, but we’ve finally got some time.”

“It’s um…an old ship… Wait, that’s an old imperial shuttle. Zeta-class? I never even saw a First Order one, they were all out-dated. Decommissioned before the Empire fell.”

“All except this one. This one was…reallocated, then repurposed.”

“I assume you mean stolen?”

Poe laughs. “Commandeered, almost destroyed, then it became this.” He leads Finn over to the door, and that’s when Finn sees the sign above the entrance. _Rogue One_.

“Wait—Rogue One? _The_ Rogue One, like, Rogue Squadron Leader Bodhi Rook’s Rogue One?”

Poe grins some more. “The first ship he flew under that callsign.”

Then Finn’s forehead creases. “What’s it doing here?”

“Come inside.” Poe helps him up the step into the ship.

Brightly lit, the ship’s interior has been stripped and filled with shelves and display cases and holos and datapads. Finn gasps. “It’s a museum…”

Poe’s smile softens. “Yeah, of the Rebellion and the Resistance. From before the Battle of Yavin, right up to now.” He points at the obviously recent addition of Han Solo’s blaster. “R2 has a little space to park. Before…he used to pretend to be powered down, and when someone got real close he’d light up and start yelling at them in binary.”

Finn looks around in awe, slowly walking between the displays. Poe follows him, but eventually he nudges Finn in the direction of a specific case. He gasps. “That’s an imperial uniform.” Poe nods and points at the datapad beside it with the description.

_“Imperial Uniform of Bodhi Rook, before he defected to the Rebellion carrying the message that would turn the tide against the Empire, describing a flaw in the original Death Star. He fought on the Battle of Scarif, and went on to fly as Leader of Rogue Squadron for many years.”_

Finn gasps and turns to Poe with wide eyes, then back to the uniform. “He worked for the Empire.”

“Yeah.”

“He defected.”

“Yeah."

“He became a hero.”

Poe smiles softly. “Yeah.”

“Thank you,” Finn whispers.

Poe takes his twitching hand. “Any time.”

  


* * *

  


Bodhi watches the two of them from a bench on the corner. He’s greyer now, more wrinkles, but the same soft-voiced man sitting beside him. He watches the tears shining in the rebel’s eyes, watches the pilot take his hand and just hold it.

Moments later, Cassian’s hand sneaks it’s way into his. “Is this what you were waiting for?”

Bodhi looks at Cassian for a moment, then back to the new generation with a soft smile. “Yeah.” 

  


**Author's Note:**

> im on tumblr at [rookmybodhi](http://www.rookmybodhi.tumblr.com), and my [ask box](http://www.rookmybodhi.tumblr.com/asks) is open so come yell with me about star wars. im also taking prompts!
> 
> also subscribe to the series if you want to get updates on the next parts to this :)


End file.
